HAMPSHIRE captain Martin Young will be looking to write another piece of history in amateur golf in Hampshire when he defends his county championship title at Royal Jersey on Friday.

The Brokenhurst Manor man is looking to win his fourth Sloan Stanley Challenge Cup since breaking his duck at Aldershot’s Army GC in 2011.

He followed that up with wins at Hockley in 2014 – the year he completed the first-ever Hampshire Slam by holding all four of the county’s major golfing honours in one season - and again at Hayling 12 months ago when he beat county colts captain Tom Robson in an epic final over the Solent seaside links.

Royal Jersey’s course will have a similar feel by the coast at Gorey this weekend, and should he emerge from two rounds of strokeplay and four rounds of matchplay as the new champion, victory would elevate him into the elite club of just three other golfers who have won the blue riband event four times or more in its 124-year history.

The others are former R&A captain David Harrison, from Stoneham (six), Hayling’s England international Ian Patey – who won four years in a row from 1934-37 and again in 1948 – and Squadron Leader C Hayward who won four times between 1922 and 1929, who was a member at Shanklin and Sandown.

Young, winner of the English Mid-Amateur in 2005, is believed to have become the oldest ever winner at 46 last year, and has been one of the country's best weekend amateurs since winning the Hampshire Salver in 2000.

Meon Valley’s George Saunders will have the chance to become one of the youngest- ever winners if the 17-year-old can make it through Friday’s 36-hole qualifier and into the draw fro the weekend’s matchplay.

Hayling’s Jamie Mist will be a strong favourite to get his hands on the Sloane Stanley Challenge Cup for the first time.

He reached the last four in the English Amateur at Ganton, last summer, in his bid to join Corhampton’s Scott Gregory and Meon Valley’s Harry Ellis as finalists since 2012, and just the county’s fifth ever winner in more than 90 years.

But to create some history the Hayling ace who has graduated from Jacksonville State University this summer – the Alabama college where last year’s Masters winner Danny Willett played for two years – will have to get past the defending champion and a strong field of 36 Channel Islanders, including 17 from the host club.

Royal Jersey will be hosting the championship for a fifth time since 1906.

The host club’s Gavin O’Neill – back to full fitness after two years of injury problems – and having played in two English County Finals for Hampshire in 2007 and 2013, will be the danger man.

Clubmate Steven Anderson has played for Hampshire Colts alongside La Moye’s Jason Stokes, who will also be one to watch, having also played for the county at the English Boys Final in 2015.

With just four other members of Young’s county first team squad heading across the Channel, including Mist and Saunders, the 33 Jersey-based players – and three from Royal Guernsey – will fancy their chances of causing a few upsets in the matchplay phase if they can reach the last 16.